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    1929 Publications From The Gillingham Park Fete Tragedy

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    Lori Oschefski
    The document describes a tragic fire that occurred at a charity event in Gillingham, England in 1929. Fifteen boys were trapped inside a mock house that was set on fire as part of a demonstration for spectators. While the crowd initially found the display amusing, they soon realized it had turned deadly as twelve boys lost their lives in the actual blaze.

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    1929 Publications From The Gillingham Park Fete Tragedy

    Uploaded by

    Lori Oschefski
    209 views36 pages
    The document describes a tragic fire that occurred at a charity event in Gillingham, England in 1929. Fifteen boys were trapped inside a mock house that was set on fire as part of a demonstration for spectators. While the crowd initially found the display amusing, they soon realized it had turned deadly as twelve boys lost their lives in the actual blaze.

    Original Description:

    This tragedy is better known at the "Fireman's Wedding". A demonstration put on by the local Gillingham Fire Brigade went horribly wrong resulting in the deaths of 15 people. Three of whom were firemen, nine children. Full details of this event can be found at www.firemanswedding.com

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    1929 Publications from the Gillingham Park Fete Tragedy

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    The document describes a tragic fire that occurred at a charity event in Gillingham, England in 1929. Fifteen boys were trapped inside a mock house that was set on fire as part of a demonstration for spectators. While the crowd initially found the display amusing, they soon realized it had turned deadly as twelve boys lost their lives in the actual blaze.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf
    209 views36 pages

    1929 Publications From The Gillingham Park Fete Tragedy

    Uploaded by

    Lori Oschefski
    The document describes a tragic fire that occurred at a charity event in Gillingham, England in 1929. Fifteen boys were trapped inside a mock house that was set on fire as part of a demonstration for spectators. While the crowd initially found the display amusing, they soon realized it had turned deadly as twelve boys lost their lives in the actual blaze.

    Copyright:

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    The 1929 Publications

    For the
    Gillingham Park Fete Tragedy

    The Fireman’s Wedding

    Compiled by
    Lori Oschefski
    2010-2011
    1929 Publications

    Rumours and Reports


    The first news of the disaster was published the very next day in the Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham Observer. It had been
    published in a great hurry and entitled "Gillingham Fete Disaster - Fire rescue scene turned to tragedy in presence of horrified
    spectators - Ten dead in holocaust". Some of the details in the earlier reports were wrong and based on guess work. Names were
    mis-spelt and some of the ages given were wrong.

    IInterestingly enough printed just below one of the earlier reports on this horiffic fire was an article mentioning the re-opening of
    the fete by Lady Gower, wife of the local Member of Parliament "in one of her delightfully gracious and brief speeches".

    One of the first statements in the standard read "Discussing with London newsmen, the Mayor of Gillingham (Councillor Treacher)
    said, "We can only guess a the possible causes. One suggestion is that someone in a fit of aberration fired half a dozen tar barrels
    which were in a lower storey. This seems the only explanation for the blaze, which, within two minutes completely enwrapped the
    house. I don't think the vicitms can have suffered much. Within a few minutes they were probably half-suffocated and must have
    become unconscious shortly afterwards. It was a terrible sight to see them hanging out of the windows imploring help in earnest,
    but everyone thought it was make-believe." The Mayor went on to say, "The local authority has now seven families to support. In
    the case of Nicholls, Cokayne and Tabrett, who belonged to the Gillingham Fire Brigade, their families will only get about ten
    shillings a week. A suggestion has been made that the site and the space around where the ashes of some of the victims had fallen,
    should be enclosed and kept as hallowed for all time. I agree with this, and will bring it up at the next council meeting".

    The occupants shouted in panic "bring the Brigade for God's sake"
    The Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham News in one of their reports said "a great burst of fire leapt from the bottom of the flimsy
    building and shot up to the top, piercing the whole structure at one terrible sweep and wrapping it in suffocation flames. The
    occupants shouted in mad panic: bring the Brigade for God's sake. Many women in the crowd fainted and had to be carried out of
    the park and several men were in tears. The firemen freniedly dragged two escape ladders to the house...two boys leaped the 40ft
    for their lives, the poor little fellows crashing into the blazing wreckage below..."

    A disaster of national importance


    The Chatham News published an editorial on July 19th 1929, its heading "Playing with fire". The text follows: "The terrible fire at
    Gillingham which has been so much in our thoughts, and has been the outstanding subject of conversation throughout the district
    in the past week, represents far more then a serious local accident, it must be regarded rather as a disaster of national importance.
    for the first few days its awful suddenness, its peculiarly tragic character left us appalled, totally unable either to think clearly or to
    concentrate our impressions concisely. Our thoughts were instinctively directed first to the suffering of the victims, and then,
    naturally to a sense of the deepest sympathy for those who in a moment had been bereft of husbands, of sons and of brothers. Now
    that a week has passed by, and most of what can be said about the ascertainable facts of the occurrence has already been expressed,
    we should be in a better position to guage the whole terrible calamity in its true perspective, to weigh up and place all its relative
    incidents so that some conclusive data may be arrived at. We have no desire , we have no authority to apportion blame - that is a
    matter for the official inquiry - but to see that such safeguards shall be taken in the future as will render a disaster of this nature
    impossible, we must regard as a duty. One may go on placing one's head in a lion's mouth for years with inferred impunity, but the
    element of danger does not cease to exist just because no accident occurs. The knowledge that such an act is popular and is looked
    for as a brilliant finish to a fine performance, does not render it less probable that some day the lion may bite. the whole idea of the
    onlookers has been to get a bit of fun, but surely that might have been provided quite as effectively without allowing the performers
    to place themselves in a position that left them exposed to very grave danger in the event of a possible error of judgement or
    misconception of anyone in charge, or even indirectly connected with the arrangements. From whatever point of view one looks at
    the matter, it is now perfectly obvious that the carrying through of such a performance was exceedingly unwise, but the tragic part
    of it is that until this terrible catastrophe took place with many lives lost, it does not seem to have occurred to the many thousands
    of people who have been present on past occasions that any such danger existed at all. fortunately, such calamities are rare.

    The Gillingham fire had its counterpart on an even vaster and more terrible scale in the disaster of the Paris Charity Bazaar of twenty
    years ago or more. Such occurances bear no relation to a railway accident, to the loss of a great liner, or even to an ordinary fire.
    They stand out alone in all their dramatic terror. They demonstrate how strangely apathetic the advance of civilisation has rendered
    the human mind to the possible consequence of playing with a dangerous element. They prove to us that the complete efficacy of
    an apparently perfected organisation into which the human element has been introduced is a fallacy, that there can never be any
    guarantee of safety on the crater of a seemingly quiescent volcano..

    We may, we doubless all of us do, deplore a lamentable deficiency of effective precautionary measures against accident wherever
    we may find it, but if so terible a mishap as we have recently experienced in our midst does not do something towards effecting a
    reorganisation of the standards of safety, prudence and forethought, then we can only believe that the high value which, as a nation
    we have always placed upon human life, no longer holds weight in civilised existence."
    The Times July 12 1929
    July 12, 1929
    Paper unknown
    The Daily Mirror
    July 13 1929

    Larger clips from newspaper will follow


    The Argus July 13 1929 The Miami News
    Austraila July 13 1929
    United States
    July 13 1929
    The Daily Mirror
    Clip from July 13 1929 The Canberra Times
    The Daily Mirror July 13 1929
    previous page Australia

    Published July 22 1929 in the Times Magazine


    "FUNNY FIRE"

    One evening last week in Gillingham, England, thousands of citizens trooped gaily
    to the city park to witness a traditional absurdity—"the realistic spectacle of a house
    on fire with thrilling rescues" —staged for the benefit of the Gillingham Hospital.
    Published July 12 1929 in the The
    A dummy three-story building had been made of wood and canvas. Inside were New York Times
    gathered ten young naval cadets, several of them dressed as clowns, and four "TWELVE BOYS DIE IN
    firemen, two of whom impersonated a bride and groom. They played comic parts in FLAMES"
    the various rooms, waiting for the red lights which would cause the building to seem
    on fire. They would then be "res-cued" by the fire company's expert ladder-work. While several hundred laughing spec-
    Next the building would be set really ablaze, to display the fire company's hose-work. tators applauded their supposed acting,
    fifteen boys screamed for help and
    In the darkness the audience grew impatient. Children squirmed and complained. twelve of them died in flames purpose-
    Suddenly the building emitted jets and twists of flame, illumined the landscape. The
    ly set for a demonstration of the mod-
    effect was uncannily real. The crowd cheered and applauded. In an upper window
    ern efficacy of fire-fighting methods
    the mock bride and groom looked funny as they gesticulated for help. The crowd
    roared heartily. Amid soaring flames, the clownish occupants of the building cut at Gillingham, in Kent, last night [July
    excited, silly capers. When the searchlight operator turned his beam on the blazing 11]. St. Bartholomew's Hospital in
    roof, he revealed what looked like a charred corpse. Nervous, delighted, the crowd's Rochester, for the benefit of which the
    amusement increased. "exposition" had been planned, has be-
    come a morgue for twelve of those
    Waves of heat rolled out over the park. Firemen rushed toward the house. Bodies who has tried to aid it, and a resting
    began dropping like torches from the upper stories. Shrieks sounded from the place between life and the grave for
    audience, from the building. Frantic women lunged toward the blaze. A real cigaret three others.
    had lit a real fire in the gasoline-soaked building too soon. Fourteen "actors" died.
    July 15 1929
    The Daily Mirror
    The Daily Mirror
    July 15 1929

    Sidney Morning Hearld News


    July 14 1929 The Times
    Australia July 15 1929
    The Daily Express
    July 15 1929
    July 15 1929

    The Daily Express


    July 16 1929
    The Daily Express
    Clip on next page
    July 16 1929 July 17 1929 July 23 1929
    The Daily Express The Daily Express

    The Daily Express The Times


    clip
    The Daily Express
    July 18 1929
    July 19, 1929 Published in the Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham Observer
    "THE LAST SAD FARWELL : HEARTRENDING SCENE"
    The Daily Express
    July 18 1929
    The Times
    July 18 1929

    Daily Sketch
    July 18 1929
    July 19th 1929 The Times The Times July 16 1929
    The Inquest Resumes

    The Times July 18 1929

    The Times July 31, 1929

    The Times August 10 1929

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